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Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

sloanreview.mit.edu

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Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#51

Post by dagw »

cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

While I agree with what you say and also put myself in camp (2), the one advantage about splitting teams geographically is that it puts you geographically closer to more customers. Depending on the nature of your business it can be very handy to meet customers, both current and potential, face to face from time to time, and having people in the same cities as your main customers makes that a lot easier.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#52

Post by einhverfr »

cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

Things cut both ways though.

On one hand transmission of ideas etc. in real time is important. On the other, face time means lots of additional distractions, so many employees may be more productive working from home.

Culture is important too but I don't see why that can't be done over remote aspects as well. Certainly the Linux project has a different culture than the PostgreSQL project, and these have different cultures than the LedgerSMB project, and in all of these you are dealing with geographically dispersed teams.

So the question is, how do people interact? How can you help them interact? How can you limit their interactions to productive ones? I think that remote and face-to-face environments just pose different challenges in these areas.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#53

Post by mbesto »

gcp wrote: post #46
cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

Culture transmits largely by physical proximity. Osmosis if you will. Culture transmits by communication, and nothing else. If you don't have a good (or equal) communication with your remotes, things are going to suck. If you have a good communication with your remotes, they'll absorb culture faster than the most introvert people that are in the actual office. Your post essentially lacks any base for the claims you m…

I think this is better served by saying that culture transmits by communication, in all it's forms, which include body language, physicality, etc.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#54

Post by einhverfr »

kamaal wrote: post #18

Let me explain this to you in simple terms. If your manager appreciates 'blow your trumpet' culture where 'making noise' is more important than work, then Working from home might be disastrous to you. But if your manager understands the wastage of time during travel/commute. The troubles faced by programmers due to frequent meetings and interruptions, the need for solitary isolation to think and work on tough problem…

Indeed. In fact I would say "management usually gets in the way more than it helps."

However, this isn't the only issue and it's not the only reason to work face-to-face. There are many cases where face-to-face communications are just better. These include design sessions and the like where more and better real time feedback can be given by a group than in any other approach. For this reason I think periodic get-togethers are important even for teams which work remotely.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#55

Post by gaius »

cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

Reminds me of a conversation at my last job:

Manager: Working from home is a privilege, not a right Me: Having me work from home is a privilege not a right

You see it cuts both ways. If management wants more than the 9-5 with an hour for lunch that it stipulates in your contract, that is.

The truth is the technology for working remotely just isn't there yet. Sure you can just churn out simple code that way, might even be faster than in the office. But nothing beats the sheer mental bandwidth of a dozen engineers in a room with big whiteboards and an ample supply of coffee. Not even IRC!

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#56

Post by countessa »

SCdF wrote: post #23
cletus wrote: post #21

Working from home is a popular topic for us engineers. Generally speaking there are two broad camps in this argument: 1. Those who want to work from home and argue largely from that position. They say they'll be just as productive, you can write code from anywhere, having a more flexible schedule will make them happier and more productive and so on; and 2. Those that think there is more to your job than the lines of…

We have a tester who lives in another city from us, and I've managed to build camaraderie with him using nothing but skype IM, including breeze shooting and other non-work based activities. I have done the same in previous jobs, with people on the other side of the world. I don't think you need to be in the same room.

In large companies that I've worked for, the uptake of IM and skype is slow and barring the occasional video conference when someone just couldn't travel for one reason or another, is almost frowned upon.

That kind of makes it difficult for remote working to take place effectively, because, whatever else we may think, work is more than just "give me my list of tasks and I'll give you the deliverables".....the social interaction and relationships between people can radically improve motivation and such.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#57

Post by EzGraphs »

Many of the comments are focused on how workers should be evaluated. The article is discussing how workers are evaluated. In fact, the authors emphasize:

"Managers may not be aware they are making evaluations based on face time."

You can argue that managers should be aware of a bias in this area and strive to minimize its effect. However, workers need to simply be realistic about the effect of working remotely - regardless of whether it seems fair to them. Personally, I prefer to work remotely - but I have always been wary about not spending enough time in the office because of the tendencies described in the article. Physical presence is a powerful thing, and difficult to ignore. Email, IM, Skype, and phone calls are much easier to ignore.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#58

Post by pwaring »

fleitz wrote: post #2

Working from home reduces visibility, you don't work from home to make more and get promoted, you work from home to avoid the retardation of a commute, busy work, excessive meetings, etc. You work from home so you can put in 2 hours work, accomplish as much as anyone else did and spend the remaining 6 enjoying your life. I'm pretty sure that everyone who decides to work from home did so for quality of life reasons ra…

"You work from home so you can put in 2 hours work, accomplish as much as anyone else did"

Agreed. I'm the only technical person in the company - if I went into the office every day I would spend half my time being asked to fix printers, 'can you just take a quick look at this?' etc. which would kill my productivity.

The other problem for me with 'being seen' is that I spend a lot of my time planning relative to writing code - e.g. for a major project I might spend half the time thinking about how to break down the problem into chunks which can be dealt with individually, then chaining them together for the final result. From an outsider's point of view, it would look like I was just sitting at a desk doodling all day. So it's actually better for me to announce a new feature every so often, because that output looks productive, whereas the process of producing it doesn't.

Having done home and in-office working, I've found that if it's a company of engineers (including managers with that background) then I prefer working the office, because I get to converse with like-minded people, and they understand that sometimes days can go by without churning out vast quantities of code. If I'm working for a company where the technical side is less central, then working from home tends to win out.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#59

Post by pinaceae »

I think it all depends on the overall setup of the company/team. If you are the odd one out telecommuting, then yes, issues arise.

But, anecdotal evidence to the rescue, here is my personal experience:

I work for a US-headquartered software company. I live in Austria. I lead a product team. My team members live in France and Germany. We all telecommute. We see each other in front of clients or at organized internal events. The rest is done through various online solutions.

Everyone is on equal footing. I, as a manager, am a telecommuter myself. I can relate, understand how to measure performance as I am measured this way myself.

Do I have a disadvantage against the colleagues in the US HQ? Absolutely, but they cannot do my job as I cover Europe. Which is fine. My team has no drawback.

And yes, by now, I am a strong advocate of tele-work for knowledge workers. A lot of reasons, but often overlooked is the ecological one. I actually use my home more. I don't have a separate office that sits around empty (still heated/ac'ed) for non-working hours. I don't waste energy hauling my physical presence back and forth to work. And yes, my company saves a metric ton of money on office space savings.

Re: Why Showing Your Face at Work Matters

#60

Post by ANH »

I work remotely, but make it into the office every couple of weeks. I had already worked with this team for two years prior to making this arrangement, so the managers and I know each other well. However, it does seem the new folks on the team (and one or two of the old ones) treat me with some suspicion. I'm the sole developer on this project, so the "12 engineers in front of a whiteboard" thing does not apply.

Anyway, I'm happier for not having to spend three hours commuting each day, and if Lines of Code is any judge (I know, I know), I'm an order of magnitude more productive.

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